Flame Bird
by Lexi-Pooh99
Summary: Phoenix Stillwater's shape shifter-lamia blood is needed to fulfill a prophecy. This is the story of the battle for her life, and what happens when being superhuman isn't enough to win. Rated M so I can put whatever I want in it. R & R please:
1. Chapter 1

Flame Bird

Phoenix Stillwater has always known about her great grandfather being a shape shifter. It's been in her blood all her life. What she didn't know was that her shape shifting blood was needed to fulfill a prophecy. Phoenix knows that a group of vampire hunters are roaming around the city, and they're killing her family. But what happens when they're not actually vampire hunters, but a race of their own? And what happens if the Stillwater killings weren't just coincidental, but were just a trial and error selection process until they find what they need?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One.

"Come on, aren't you going to at least struggle a bit?" Phoenix Stillwater growled through her teeth. The silly human that tried to mug her on her way to the Black Iris was on the ground with the beautiful vampire straddling him. He'd had a gun, but Phoenix quickly disposed of it. Her delicate hand was placed on his throat, slowly cutting off his air supply.

"Oh, come on, it isn't fun for me if there isn't a little fight," her canines gleamed in the moonlight as she smiled. The man, who had a tattoo right under her hand, looked stunned. Phoenix could understand why. She didn't look all that intimidating. She had small, almond shaped silvery-blue eyes, long, straight blonde hair, and she was barely five-foot-five. She was seemingly a defenseless fifteen year old, but now that she had the upper hand, he could clearly see that she was anything but. He started to shake, giving in to her desires. She grinned her signature grin, with the dimple in her right cheek, and she gracefully sunk her teeth into his jugular. She was tempted to suck him dry, and leave his body for the rats, but she knew that someone would catch on. Ever since six months ago when a group of rogue vampires traipsed through her hometown of Toronto, Canada, there had been a sudden surge of vampire hunters in the area. Just last week, her brother Robin was staked. Phoenix was upset, but her and Robin never saw eye to eye—he was a damned Daybreaker. Robin, even as a child, never understood that humans could destroy vampires. Phoenix always knew the rules. She was a loner at school, she still was. By choice. Almost every single day there were people trying to become friends with her, but she avoided them. There had only been three other Night People at her school, two witches and a shape shifter, and they were all in Circle Daybreak. Didn't anybody understand?

The body went limp beneath her, and she pulled away.

"That'll teach you." she got up and continued walking. She wondered who would be in the club tonight. She knew Ash Redfern wouldn't show his face. Not since he joined Circle Daybreak. Why was everybody ditching the vampire side of things? The so-called apocalypse had come and gone, and everybody, well, nearly everybody came out of it just fine. Phoenix was only six when the ultimate battle came up, so her mother Sparrow hid her with a group of witches from Circle Daybreak. But none of this mattered anymore. She turned the corner, and there in the alleyway was the door marked with a black iris. She knocked, and a lithe looking boy, probably a shape shifting cat of some sort opened the door. He recognized her almost immediately, as she came to the club almost nightly. Her parents, also damned Daybreakers tried to convert her, but she stood firmly to her beliefs that were the same as Hunter Redfern's.

"Phoenix," he greeted.

"Kap," his full first name was Kaplan, which meant tiger in Turkish. Phoenix looked around the room. Most of it's occupants were shape shifters. She could identify with them, her great grandfather on her mother's side was a shape shifter, an original phoenix. All her family members since him had bird-like names. Her two brothers were Robin and Arnold, which means eagle power, and her sister is Swan.

Phoenix sauntered over to the pool table where a lamia and a made vampire were down to three balls. The lamia, she knew was Oliver Reed, better known as Ollie. He was a year older than her, and he liked to remind her of it all the time. The made vampire was new. He couldn't have been more than nineteen, since if he were any older, he wouldn't have survived the transformation. He had long brown hair, and piercing green eyes. You could almost see how new he was. Although, maybe it was just because she had the best eyes of all the vampires. Phoenix leaned towards Ollie and whispered in his ear.

"When did you change this one?"she looked into his amber eyes.

"He was done changing last Tuesday, but don't tell anyone. He's for my sister." Ollie was a sweetheart. His sister Sky was the pickiest of all the lamia. She didn't believe in the soul mate principle, as did Phoenix. So, she went around hunting for the perfect boyfriend.

"Your secret is safe with me." she made a zipper motion across her mouth. She was like a vault when it came to secrets.

"So, what's your name, hotstuff?" she sidled over to the made vampire.

"Connor." he puffed out his chest, still using his human male instincts in picking up a woman.

"I'm Phoenix, but I bet you already knew that." it was true, most knew of her. She was the ultimate vampire hunter-hunter. Not even The Cat stood a chance against her, but Rashel had been tamed by Quinn when Phoenix was just a little girl. There were plenty of wannabe's out there lately.

"So Oliver, I came here to ask you a question," she was going to ask him to join her on her mission to find out who's sending these hunters around the city. Other than her, he was the best vampire hunter-hunter out there. He knew all the tricks to avoiding their wooden handcuffs and the stakes. An ariel attack usually did it, but you had to be on your game. Their senses were as sharp as a human's could get, so you had to be careful. For Phoenix, the risk of getting hurt was what had drawn her to the sport. Nothing is worth it unless there's a risk, she always believed.

"Anything for you, babe,"

What a ladies man, she thought.

"there's been a group of vampire hunters running around Toronto. They couldn't have just popped out of no where. Someone sent them. So I was thinking that if we could get maybe two or three more hunter-hunters together, we could find out who's doing it." the way Phoenix laid it out made it seem like no big deal. Ollie ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, thinking it through.

"No way, Phoenix. It's too dangerous." her face fell. This was the first time he had said no to any idea she ever told him. Too dangerous? Since when were things too dangerous for Oliver Reed?

"You can't be serious? It's a little group of vampire hunters. Amateur ones, at that. They're so sloppy with their work. We could easily take them just the two of us!" there was a flash of flames behind her cool blue eyes. That happened every time she got angry.

"If they're just a group of amateur vampire hunters, what's the big rush to hunt them? They'll move on." Oliver went back to finishing the game.

"_Oliver_, come on! It would be more fun than anything." she was usually good at persuasion. But he was like a brick wall.

"I know you want to avenge Robin, but I'm not going to help you. In fact, I'm not going to let _you_ do anything about it either."

"This has nothing to do with Robin! And you can't stop me. Nothing can stop me!" Phoenix turned on her heel and stormed towards the door. She felt like slaughtering one of those vampire hunters right this second.

"Wait, Phoenix! Look, I can't let you out there." Ollie hurried behind her and grabbed her hand. A spark?

"Why not? I can obviously handle myself out there. I totally kicked some mugger's ass on my way over here." she yanked her hand away. The skin to skin contact shocked her.

"There's something I need to show you."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two.

"Is it more important than getting rid of these vampire hunters? I don't think so." Phoenix tried turning away again. But again, Ollie stopped her.

"Just _look_." he handed her a crumpled up piece of paper that looked like it was torn from a volume. Phoenix opened it up, and read aloud the writing

Birds of flight

Fall until there is none

Take blood of all

But only need one

Croatan, powerful by the name

Given ultimate life by the bird of the flame.

"What is this?" she asked, giving him a quizzical look.

"I was looking through my family's old books, and I found this. I'm not completely sure what it means, but it says something about birds."

"Your point? If it's even talking about Night World, it's talking about shape shifters. Not lamia." Phoenix crumpled the paper back up and slipped it into her pocket instead of handing it back to Ollie. Even if it wasn't about lamia, she wanted to look into it.

"Phoenix, think about it. _Birds of flight_. Everyone in your family is named after a bird of flight." Ollie wouldn't let her leave.

"So? Dyl is an owl. Bird of flight. Why don't you harass him?" Phoenix put her hands on her hips, referencing to her best friend, Dylluan.

"Alright, fine. Don't take this as a warning, but when another person in your family dies, don't tell me I didn't tell you so." Ollie said, and turned back to the billiard.

* * *

Phoenix practically ran home. As much fun as getting mugged and then feeding on the mugger was, she needed to get home so she could examine the prophecy better. She opened the door silently, hoping she'd get in undetected.

"Phoenix! Where the hell were you!" Sparrow ran into her and pulled her into an embrace.

"The Black Iris. Where else would I be?" Phoenix wiggled out of her mother's grasp. Although Sparrow was over sixty years old, she didn't look over thirty five. Which was due to the fact that she stopped the aging process at that age.

"From now on, I want you home by eight o'clock each night. No exceptions." Orson, her father, said, coming out from the living room. His face was ashen.

"Wait, what happened?" Phoenix asked, pushing past her parents. In the middle of the living room floor where the coffee table usually was, was a lump covered by a white cloth. She looked at her brother Arnold, who was sitting on the couch next to the lump, his face in his hands.

Someone was missing.

"Where's Swan?" Phoenix asked frantically. Arnold looked up from his hands, and looked at the sheet. Phoenix walked over swiftly, and lifted the sheet. Underneath was her sister, her skin like leather, and a cavity punctured into her heart. Her father came and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Although most vampire's don't show much emotion in general, Phoenix didn't even show that.

"We got home from the office, and we found her on the back porch." Orson explained. Swan was only seventeen. And like the rest of her family, she too was a Daybreaker.

"Oh. Oh god." Phoenix pretended to be consumed with grief, and dashed to the stairs. Maybe Ollie was right about the prophecy?

Upstairs in her room, Phoenix turned on her laptop and sent Dyl a message. Within minutes, she heard a screech of an owl outside her window. She opened the window and they small grey bird flew in gracefully, and then swiftly turned into a boy.

"What was the thing you needed to show me?" he asked, seating himself on her bed. Phoenix looked at him as she passed him the paper. He was out of high school, had been for about a year, but the age gap didn't mean a thing to them. "Seems like something Ollie would send you." he said after he finished reading it.

"Yeah, when he first showed me this I thought maybe he was just playing a joke, but first Robin was killed, and now Swan. I think we should look into this." Phoenix tried to avoid his gaze. When she said that Swan was killed, Dyl's face clouded over.

Even though he knew that she wasn't his soul mate—Dyl wasn't a Daybreaker, but he did believe in the principle—he still kept trying for a date with Swan.

"So what are we going to do?" Dyl asked curiously.

"I think we should find out who's killing my family, and why. As much as I dislike them, I can't let them be hurt." Phoenix said purposefully.

"Alright, so are we going to tell Oliver?"

"He said he wouldn't help me fight the vampire hunters. So I don't think he'll help with this. We're on our own." she looked at him with a glint in her eye. A glint that she never usually got on random.

"What was that?" Dyl asked, shuffling closer to her. He grabbed her face and examined her eyes.

"What was what?" she yanked his hand away.

"I'm not sure. There was like, a flash of something." he stepped back and gave her a funny look. "Anyways, I better go. My parents are probably wondering where I am." Dyl crouched down to the ground, and shifted. He spread his wings and flew out the window the same way he came. Phoenix thought Dyl's situation was funny. His parents were completely human, unknowing to the Night World. They had named him Dylluan because they were Welsh and his mother's favorite animal was an owl, and the name was close to Dylan, a more common name. What they didn't expect for one day when Dyl was in highschool, he was in the nearby forest with some friends, bothering an owl that turned out to be a shape shifter. The bird swooped down, and bit him, thus making him a shape shifting owl. Phoenix always laughed at the irony of the situation.

Phoenix folded the paper up neatly, and slipped it into a drawer on her desk. She crawled into bed, and turned off the lamp. Tomorrow, she and Dyl were going to go into the secret library her mother kept in the basement. Maybe Phoenix Senior knew something about this that she didn't.


End file.
